Music: Blueswoman Dana Fuchs to perform in Plymouth

By Chad Berndtson/For The Patriot Ledger

Tuesday

Sep 4, 2018 at 1:52 PMSep 11, 2018 at 10:56 AM

Dana Fuchs’ new album “Love Lives On” came from a very personal place. Reeling from the deaths of several family members in a short span over the past few years – and also celebrating the birth of her son – she threw herself into music – more, she said, out of necessity than anything else.

“It was almost like I had no control over it. It was painful, and it needed to come out,” the singer said. “But I just started singing these songs and more things came out and we did what we needed to do.”

New York-based Fuchs, who headlines Plymouth’s Spire Center for the Arts Friday, completed the 13-song album in Memphis in less than two weeks. Her passionate vocals – she comes from the Janis Joplin school of richly lived-in blues and soul – would be enough to carry any music. But “Love Lives On” is left that much more enchanting by its contributors, including Fuchs’ longtime musical partner and co-producer Jon Diamond, organist the Rev. Charles Hodges and drummer and Stax legend Steve Potts.

“There’s nothing like playing live when you feed off the energy of others, but I love recording, too” she said. “We had these different musicians come in and these songs just in some cases took on a whole new life, and a whole new tempo. It was a playground.”

Fuchs has seen a lot in her nearly 20 years now as an active musician, from her much-beloved appearance as “Sexy Sadie” in 2007’s “Across the Universe” to portraying Joplin in “Love, Janis,” off-Broadway. There's a mighty body of work – including seven albums – and audiences slayed from Austin to Amsterdam.

Fuchs has a bigger band than usual aboard for this tour, including a fleshed-out horn section. The last thing she wants to be is predictable.

“We all come together at shows for a reason – we escape our lives for minute and be in an experience together,” Fuchs said. “So what I do I think has gotten much more free over time. I don’t even make a setlist anymore. I think when you do the same thing night after night, the audience perceives it, and no matter how good everyone sounds and how tight the band is, it lacks an energy and an authenticity. So from us you get the real deal.”